Heidegger and Affect studies: A case study of the transition from renting to home-ownership

Abstract

This article is a meditation on the existential implications of home. On the basis of an ethnographic case study of Helen, a prospective first-time homebuyer in New York City, this article explores the psychological challenges that moving raised for her. Through a reading of Heidegger’s notion of dwelling that highlights the concept’s ambiguities, the article examines the complicated affordances of residential stability and exposes Helen’s tendency to idealize home. The positive affordances of home are typically seen as reinforced with residential stability in both the form of regulated renting and homeownership. Helen’s experience diverged from this expectation. Reading Helen with Heidegger allows for insight into how her relationships to place and with things informed the way she made decisions about and processed her experiences with moving, leaving and buying.